1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic filing apparatus, an electronic filing system and an electronic filing method, for filing documents with electronic means.
2. Related Background Art
The conventional electronic filing apparatus, a large-sized expensive exclusive apparatus, is not necessarily convenient for use as it is designed with an exclusive operating method which requires a specially trained operator, and is incapable of managing the documents in common with desk top printed documents, as it is independent from the personal computer.
To realize a compact and inexpensive electronic filing apparatus, it is conceivable to apply the filing technology on a commercially available personal computer. The functional elements required for the electronic filing apparatus are a scanner, an OCR, a keyword searching function, a disk device such as a magnetooptical disk device etc. A document printed on "paper" is read by the scanner, then the character information is converted into codes by the OCR, also the key words are automatically picked up and stored in the disk device together with said codes. These functions are sufficient for an apparatus designed exclusively for electronic filing, but, in case of electronic filing on a personal computer, the documents to be handled would not be lemeted to those printed on "paper". Thus, it becomes necessary to handle desk top printed documents, prepared by entry from the keyboard. However such desk top printed (DTP) documents are completely different in file formats, depending on the application software used in their preparation. This will result in the following drawbacks if such documents are stored in the form of files:
(1) In case of access, from plural personal computers, to the DTP documents stored in a server provided on a network, the application software used in the preparation of the document may not be present on all such personal computers. Even a difference in version of such application software will present difficulty; PA1 (2) In case personal computers of different architectures are present on the network, even files prepared by the same application software cannot be accessed mutually as they are usually different in the file format; PA1 (3) The commercially available application softwares are not usable for electronic filing, as most lack the function of extracting the key words; PA1 (4) If an exclusive search software is prepared and the filing operation is conducted in an indirect manner from a commercially available software through said search software, the document information is transmitted through a file or through a cut-and-paste function, but the procedure required for such an operation is cumbersome, requires a long time, and is difficult to automate; PA1 (5) The conventional electronic filing apparatus, being independent from the personal computer, is incapable of managing the files and the DTP documents on common basis.
To resolve some of these drawbacks, various filters been provided.
The number of filters required varies according to the number of applications to be used. For example, for 10 applications, .sub.10 C.sub.2 combinations of the filters will be required, so that there will be an enormous number of filter processes involved.
Also, the data exchange between applications of quite different character, such as a scanner application, word processing application, table calculating application is extremely difficult if it is conducted through files, because the file formats generated by such different applications are arbitrarily determined by the vendors of the software and have no mutual interchangability.
Also certain standard formats such as "TIFF", "PICT", "EPS", "GIF", "TGA" etc., not dependent on the application are not universal, being compatible only with a part of such applications.
Also, some personal computers such as MaCintosh or Windows-based machines are designed to effect data exchange through the "cut and paste" function, but with a format limited to "PICT" or "GIF".